


Edelgard and the Mechnical Heart

by WotanAnubis



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, Cyborgs, Gen, Two People Chatting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22229521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WotanAnubis/pseuds/WotanAnubis
Summary: In which Edelgard fixes an ancient machine so she can ask it a question.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	Edelgard and the Mechnical Heart

**Author's Note:**

> You ever have one of those days where you really want to write, but can't work up the motivation to write?

Edelgard looked down at the screen, which showed the words _Diagnostic in Progress_ and a green progress bar very slowly inching its way up to 100%. She didn't really have to keep a watch on the screen. Even though her computer had been bashed together out of whatever scraps she'd been able to salvage out in the wastes, she was pretty confident it wouldn't break all of a sudden.

No, the reason why she kept focused on the screen was so that she wouldn't have to look at what her computer was running a diagnostic on.

In a way, the thing hooked up to Edelgard's computer with dozens of wires was very much like the computer - another piece of salvage from the wasteland. That would also be the wrong way of looking at it.

The thing was... well, humanoid. It had once been human, but Edelgard wasn't certain it still counted as one. Most of its body was machinery. Its limbs were mechanical, its spine was mechanical, its heart, most of its skull, significant parts of its brain, one eye.

The rest of the thing was... flesh. A human body, or the disfigured remnants of one, anyway. It should have rotted away ages ago, but somehow its robotic parts kept it... well, Edelgard didn't want to use 'alive' for the thing, because she wasn't certain it was alive. Animate, was perhaps the better word.

It was an ugly and crude thing, utterly unlike the sleek killers that still haunted the wastes from time to time. Which meant one of two things. Either it had been built early on, when nobody really knew what they were doing yet, or it had been built near the end, when most of the production facilities had been destroyed and resources must have been running out.

And once that infuriatingly slow progress bar reached 100%, Edelgard would reactivate it again. Perhaps it was cruel to inflict such a thing on that cybernetic abomination, but there was something she had to know.

"Edie, it's well past dinnertime."

Edelgard looked up from the soft glow of the screen to see that the rest of her workshop had gotten surprisingly dark indeed. Dorothea stood in the doorway with a steaming bowl of something or other in her hand.

"Oh," said Edelgard. "Sorry. I must have lost track of time."

"That seems to be happening a lot lately," said Dorothea, carefully picking her way through the metal debris that usually littered Edelgard's workshop. "Ever since we dug up... you know... _that_."

"Well, I'm almost done," said Edelgard, turning away from the screen.

Dorothea sat down on a corroded metal box that still had the word OLS on it. Edelgard had never quite figured out what OLS was. She suspected there were letters missing.

Edelgard grabbed a chair and sat down across from Dorothea. Unlike nearly everything else in her workshop, the chair was made of wood and fairly new.

"Here," said Dorothea.

"Thanks," said Edelgard, taking the offered bowl. She took a careful bite of stew. It was hot, and filling, and didn't taste of anything very much. It was quite good.

"Edie, do you think it's wise what you're doing here?" Dorothea asked.

Edelgard nodded in the direction of the silent mass of flesh and robotics. "You mean, trying to get that thing working again?"

"Well, yeah, actually," said Dorothea. "Most dangerous thing in the wastes are robots that think the war's still going on. I don't exactly relish the idea of you starting one up in the middle of the tribe."

"It's harmless," said Edelgard. "I disabled its weaponry, even though it doesn't even have any ammunition. I'm not that stupid."

"It might still try to throttle you," said Dorothea.

"Maybe," Edelgard admitted. "But I don't think it will."

"And then there's the other thing as well," said Dorothea.

"What other thing?" Edelgard asked between mouthfuls of stew.

"You know you couldn't exactly keep this a secret, right? Word's got out to the other tribes that you've been fixing up a cyborg soldier."

"Oh," said Edelgard. "Is that all? And what do they think?"

"Well, Claude's let us know that he's very interested in learning how it goes," said Dorothea.

"I'm sure his interest is purely academical," Edelgard remarked drily.

"Oh, of course," said Dorothea. "As for Dimitri... well, I wasn't actually there, but from what I hear he had some speech about how this could be an important step on the long road toward healing our broken society and recapturing our lost past."

Edelgard rolled her eyes. "He would say that."

Edelgard thoughtfully chewed her stew in silence for a while. She wasn't sure she should broach the topic. But if she couldn't tell Dorothea, who could she tell?

Probably Hubert. Petra, most likely. Possibly Ferdinand. No, probably not Ferdinand.

"Say, Dorothea, have you ever been to Ailell?"

"The Valley of Torment?" Dorothea said. "I think I considered it once, but then decided that I didn't really need radiation poisoning. Why?"

"I've gone there once. Or as close to it as I could get and still stay safe, obviously," said Edelgard. "You know, we all call this the wasteland, but it isn't really. We live here, animals live here, plants grow. We survive. Life survives. Nothing survived Ailell. It's a livid wound."

"So I've heard," said Dorothea, "but what's your point?"

"My point is, I've no interest at all in recapturing the past. Seeing the Valley of Torment, I decided that the kind of society that could do something like that has no value. It's dead and it should stay dead."

"Nice speech," said Dorothea. She nodded to the silent cyborg. "So why're you fixing that, then?"

"I want to know something," said Edelgard.

"And...?" Dorothea prompted.

"And that's all I'll say about the matter for now," said Edelgard. "Thank you for the stew."

Dorothea gave her a weird look. "What? Why?"

"Oh. I mean, thank you for bringing it to me."

"Oh, sure," said Dorothea. "Don't mention it."

Dorothea remained seated on her metal box. She was trying very hard not to grin, and failing spectacularly.

"You can go now," said Edelgard.

"That's alright, I'm fine right here," said Dorothea.

Edelgard sighed. "Please leave."

"Fine," said Dorothea. "Have it your way."

Edelgard watched Dorothea wander out of her workshop, then walked back the her computer and the silent abomination hooked up to it. The progress bar had reached 100%. The screen showed the words _Diagnostic Complete. 0 Problem(s) Found_.

Right then, this was it. Edelgard took a deep breath, then started unhooking the ancient soldier. She took much longer than she needed to. She was being much too careful, she knew. But after getting this close, she wasn't about to mess it all up by yanking out a cable too hard.

Once the cyborg was finally disconnected nothing happened. Of course nothing happened. Edelgard hadn't activated the thing yet. Yet some part of her couldn't help but feel that the moment it was free from its wires, the thing should have sprung to life instantly.

Edelgard walked around the creature one last time. It stared dully at the floor. Or, no, it didn't. It knelt on the floor and was slightly hunched over so that its face was turned towards to floor. But it wasn't staring. That implied either the thing's mechanical or biological eye was capable of seeing anything.

It had been human, once. And then someone had felt the need to jam all of this machinery into it. And if it had been just the limbs or the senses, that would have been one thing. But even its brain was a machine now. Its thoughts were a program. Most of them, anyway.

"Activate unit..."

Edelgard hesitated. There'd been a code. Some passphrase to let the inert cyborg know that it was being given commands by an ally and not an enemy.

An 'ally' that had taken a human and shoved a computer into its brain to make it better at killing.

"Activate unit," Edelgard repeated. "Code: Seiros. Silver. 21."

The dead hulk of meat and metal came into motion. It raised its face, looked at Edelgard. _Looked_ at Edelgard. Those mute eyes actually saw her, she was sure.

The cyborg soldier got to its feet and stood silently in front of Edelgard. Was it waiting for her to speak? Was it even capable of waiting for anything?

"Who are you?" Edelgard asked.

"This unit is designated S0-TH1-5," it replied.

"I see," said Edelgard. 

The disappointment must have been audible in her voice, but the cyborg soldier didn't react to it. Why should it?

"What's your _name_?" Edelgard asked.

"Name...?"

The cyborg stared at Edelgard. Confusion clouded its one biological eye. Its mechanical one remained as steady and unblinking as ever.

"Name," it repeated.

The cyborg fell silent. When it spoke again, it did so slowly, with difficulty, trying to recall words it had long since forgotten.

"My name is Byleth," she said.


End file.
